Public Has Little Regard For Disputes

January 14, 1997|By DAVID LIGHTMAN; Washington Bureau Chief

WASHINGTON — The people who run the country want the public to watch what they say, not what they do.

Some Washington opinion- makers want voters to look at the Supreme Court case of William Jefferson Clinton vs. Paula Corbin Jones, which the justices heard Monday, and see a president unable to stay away from attractive women.

Across the street at the Capitol, others want to tar House Republicans as a desperate bunch, determined to save their ethically challenged speaker at any cost.

But there is plenty of evidence that voters see all the combat as the American version of a sport of kings, not the commoners. The history of U.S. elections during the past 20-odd years, on both the national and local level, is that the people who win elections are the people with the biggest lists of accomplishments, not the biggest mouths.

As a result, as the Jones controversy leaves the front pages and the turmoil over House Speaker Newt Gingrich's ethics problems is set to re-emerge, Washington lawmakers are quietly doing what they are supposed to do -- preparing to write laws.

Meetings are under way among members of both parties and the White House to discuss how to fashion a balanced budget. Committees in both chambers are preparing to launch several days of sessions to examine the U.S. economy.

President Clinton's latest Cabinet appointments, all of whom await Senate confirmation, have wallowed in a skirmish-free environment.

So is all the hoopla about ethics problems just an exercise in political muscle-flexing -- designed to attract the media and other Washington observers? What was the point of the ``I Believe Paula'' sign outside the Supreme Court Monday? Why did acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger tell the Supreme Court that courts should not be engaged in the ``politically charged task'' of managing a president's time?

Why do some Washington figures think rejoinders are as important as results?

Analysts cannot figure out why this partisan fencing match is so relentless. To the public, this stuff is as exciting as, well, fencing.

``People say these things are bad,'' said Cheryl Arnedt, deputy director of surveys at the CBS News poll, ``but they're used to it.''

The public

What the public most wants is to be comfortable and secure. Nothing boosts a politician's popularity like peace and prosperity, and, at the moment, the American public generally has both.

As a result, they are not about to get too stirred up by partisan point-scoring. Indeed, for about two years, polls have routinely showed little change in public opinion about Gingrich, R-Ga., or Clinton.

Gingrich's favorability ratings in the Gallup poll sank to 30 percent or less about two years ago, after it was revealed he was offered a $4.5 million advance for two books.

After outcries from opponents about not only the money, but that the owner of the book's publisher was Rupert Murdoch, who had an interest in having Congress deregulate the broadcast industry, Gingrich said he would take only royalties, not the advance. But his popularity sank and never recovered.

Similarly, different accusations have dogged Clinton almost from the day he became president four years ago. Senate Republicans held hearings on the Whitewater scandal and issued a terse, finger-pointing report last year. Clinton's reported fondness for women has become a standard part of most Republican and comedians' repertoires.

More embarrassing to the White House was its request for FBI files of leading Republicans, and more potentially damaging could be the continuing investigation of independent counsel Kenneth Starr, who is looking into Whitewater- related matters.

Yet all that was known last year, and Clinton was re-elected handily.

``Most of the people who voted for him thought he was honest and trustworthy,'' said Lydia Saad, managing editor of the Gallup poll. Clinton backers tend to see most complaints against him as either politically motivated or irrelevant to the job he is doing.

As a result, said Saad, ``judging from the track record, you wouldn't think it [the Jones case] would have much effect in the future.''

The politicians

Recent history is strewn with examples of politicians who lost elections because the voters thought they were ineffective.

Presidents Carter and Bush failed to win second terms not because of scandal. Polls at the time found much of the public blamed Carter for gasoline lines and high inflation and interest rates, and Bush for a lagging economy.

The most recent unleashing of voter ire came in 1994. Bickering between Republicans and Democrats over relatively minor points forced Congress to take nearly the entire month of August to complete work on what should have been a routine anti-crime bill.